Diablo II: Ressurected Beta

[mama]

Great game when it came out. Super memorable. I spent many waking and non-waking hours on it. Won't go back. Looking for the next great experience.

 

[Chrispy_]

My memories of D2 are very fond, but the core mechanics have aged badly; Graphics can certainly help those die-hard/nostalgic fans who refuse to criticse D2 but at the same time the game is a massive, inflexible time-sink with diminishing returns on that dopamine hit for progressively more abusive grinds.

Whilst even modern ARPGs are grindy in their endgame, they are also flexible, so that you can respec and progress sideways rather than being forced into a near zero-progress upward grind. They are also much wider games in the first place with a multitude of different gameplay loops. D2 just has the campaign and its quest for better gear. I've thrown a few thousand hours at D3, PoE, Torchlight 1&2, Titan Quest, Grim Dawn and even the weakest titles in that short list have more to offer than D2.

So, as a love-letter to D2 I'm sure this remaster is fantastic, but D2 itself is a game from an era when the genre was immature and lacking. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't just a little disappointed that Blizzard haven't applied any of the valuable lessons they've learned in the last two decades of Diablo and WoW....

I think we all put up with this stuff 20 years ago because the game was so fresh and amazing for the time, but in 2021 Diablo 2 is - in terms of how it controls - clunky and trashy.

Games like Path of Exile and Grim Dawn are so much more fluid and you get to focus more on playing the game rather than [fighting dated and clunky mechanics]

QFT.
After several back-to-back seasons of PoE I felt even Grim Dawn was poor, but it's actually a pretty significant gameplay and mechanics improvement on D2. I had to reinstall D2:LOD after finishing Grim Dawn to remind myself how badly D2 has aged.

 

[neatfeatguy]

After playing the original D2 for a bit and tying the remastered, they do feel the same aside fron the auto coin pickup.

I would have liked to haven seen a stacking of potions and scrolls as part of the update.

The graphic update is nice, along with the higher resolution support. However, I have the original and I couldn't bring myself to drop $40 on a remastered version. It looked pretty, but as others have mentioned there are better ARPG games out there.

I've been working on a poison, two pistol build in Grim Dawn. Just hit level 70 with him and he's doing pretty good. I think his DPS gets over 17K right now. I just litter the area around me with poison and blast away. I haven't died yet.

 

[Chrispy_]

I have the original and I couldn't bring myself to drop $40 on a remastered version.

I can't honestly remember the names of the mods now, but there were mods for the original D2 that did a lot of what this remaster is doing but for free via a Glide wrapper.

I was using these mods something like 12 years ago, so paying $40 for a graphical update that still looks very dated by modern ARPG standards isn't really appealing.

If we want "true to the original" we'll just play the original.
If we want "enhanced graphics" the remaster is doing something similar to what we've always had for free.

Screw you, Blizzard/Activision.

 

[londiste]

I can't honestly remember the names of the mods now, but there were mods for the original D2 that did a lot of what this remaster is doing but for free via a Glide wrapper.

Glide wrapper is basically for increased resolution and view distance (and IIRC is likely to get you banned from bnet).
Have you watched the videos about D2R or did you try it during open beta? I have not seen mods that even remotely do what D2R is doing.

 

[Operandi]

If we want "true to the original" we'll just play the original.
If we want "enhanced graphics" the remaster is doing something similar to what we've always had for free.

D2 came out in weird transition period between highly refined 2D pixel graphics that was pretty close to perfected and 3D graphics switching things up. Even back then when D2 was new and myself not having a lot f context to draw on I remember D2 looking pretty garbage compared to the way more basic graphic assets of SNES or older 2D PC games. It just looked like a garbled mess of pixels as if the technology wasn't ready for the developers vision but they worked with what they had. It didn't have the simple lo-fi pixel art charm we recognize today nor did it have the high resolution to create detailed high resolution worlds; OG Diablo II never looked good in my opinion.

The remaster though is complete top to bottom visual recreation of the game, new engine, new art assets, new effects and in my opinion looks great. You recognize it as D2 but only because they are recreating the existing world and characters but otherwise its visually completely new mods will never deliver on that.

I won't comment on the game in comparison to modern ARPGs, the last one I played after D2 was Torchlight and aside from the visual art style I wasn't really all that impressed.

 

[Chrispy_]

Glide wrapper is basically for increased resolution and view distance (and IIRC is likely to get you banned from bnet).
Have you watched the videos about D2R or did you try it during open beta? I have not seen mods that even remotely do what D2R is doing.

Yeah, I watched the deep dive. The remastered edition is basically HD artwork designed for widescreen, and running on the base game. Like, the original D2 game runs underneath the HD remaster!

As cool as that is, graphics are not what made D2 good back in the day, and changing the graphics will not do anything to fix the aging gameplay mechanics of D2.

I'm sure some people will love D2 remastered, but nostalgia is cruel and we've come such a long way with ARPGs that D2 feels really quite bad by modern standards, and I'm saying that as someone with at least a thousand hours of D2 ladder and probably even longer on LAN play/solo; I was truly in love with D2 back in the day but that day was half my lifetime ago and things have moved on. I don't think I'm alone in hoping that the D2 remaster would include some serious quality-of-life, and also - for $40 - some things that would aid replayability.

I won't comment on the game in comparison to modern ARPGs, the last one I played after D2 was Torchlight and aside from the visual art style I wasn't really all that impressed.

Torchlight was pretty bland and soulless. It was a fun weekend of 4-man LAN play but none of us ever went back to it because it didn't have the unique gear depth of D2. I think we were masochists back in the D2 day and the need to find uniques/sets on abysmal droprates overrode our actual complaints of the gameplay. The uniques/sets/build possibilities are what set D2/D3 and PoE apart from the rest, IMO.

 

[pantherx12]

If it supports modding as well as the old diablo 2 I might pick this up when on sale.

Otherwise diablo 2 is a better option, really love eastern sun mod.

 

[Sithaer]

If it supports modding as well as the old diablo 2 I might pick this up when on sale.

Otherwise diablo 2 is a better option, really love eastern sun mod.

Eastern Sun was also my fav mod at the time when I was playing with mods in single player.

Mod support is rather questionable for now and theres already a petition going on:
https://www.change.org/p/activision...ed-including-private-realm-hardcoding-support

 

[neatfeatguy]

Yeah, I watched the deep dive. The remastered edition is basically HD artwork designed for widescreen, and running on the base game. Like, the original D2 game runs underneath the HD remaster!

As cool as that is, graphics are not what made D2 good back in the day, and changing the graphics will not do anything to fix the aging gameplay mechanics of D2.

I'm sure some people will love D2 remastered, but nostalgia is cruel and we've come such a long way with ARPGs that D2 feels really quite bad by modern standards, and I'm saying that as someone with at least a thousand hours of D2 ladder and probably even longer on LAN play/solo; I was truly in love with D2 back in the day but that day was half my lifetime ago and things have moved on. I don't think I'm alone in hoping that the D2 remaster would include some serious quality-of-life, and also - for $40 - some things that would aid replayability.


Torchlight was pretty bland and soulless. It was a fun weekend of 4-man LAN play but none of us ever went back to it because it didn't have the depth of D2.

A few more QOL changes would have made the remaster better, but that was never their idea - just as you say, a reskinned D2 game. The hit boxes are still clunky, animations are still slightly off/out of sync (for example, you hit a creature and it doesn't die right away....it turns to run and drops dead mid stride even though you haven't tried to attack it again), potions would make the sound that you drank them, but they never actually were used. Oh well, I guess I shouldn't care too much since I won't be buying a copy of the game in it's remastered glory.

I thought Torchlight 2 was better than the first. I remember playing the first (either got it free with something or was dirt cheap), put maybe 10-20 hours into it and thought....eh....it's okay. Never touched it again. The second Torchlight just felt more polished and seemed more engaging over the first, but it's even been so long since I played it I couldn't tell you off hand exactly what made it better over the first.

 

[Cvrk]

The hit boxes are still clunky,

Bro, you hit in mid-air, you just hit air...the mob is nowhere near you and he takes damage. The sad part is vice-versa. As you run around them trying to do a train so you can nuke, you will take damage from afar, when of course you are not that close to them.
It really get's fun when the boss has a sword he swings it and you take damage from what it looks to be 5 meters in front

 

[londiste]

In most cases it is not the hitboxes but clunky network code, lag or overloaded server.

 

[Chrispy_]

In most cases it is not the hitboxes but clunky network code, lag or overloaded server.

used to happen offline tho.
D2's engine is basically a mess, and this remaster is going to continue using that 22-year-old Engine. Blizzard themselves talked about it during the deep dive so it's not exactly a secret.

 

[Vayra86]

After playing the original D2 for a bit and tying the remastered, they do feel the same aside fron the auto coin pickup.

I would have liked to haven seen a stacking of potions and scrolls as part of the update.

The graphic update is nice, along with the higher resolution support. However, I have the original and I couldn't bring myself to drop $40 on a remastered version. It looked pretty, but as others have mentioned there are better ARPG games out there.

I've been working on a poison, two pistol build in Grim Dawn. Just hit level 70 with him and he's doing pretty good. I think his DPS gets over 17K right now. I just litter the area around me with poison and blast away. I haven't died yet.

Here's something to compare to for a poison build It can get completely mental but I'm not sure pistols can go this far. I'm sorry if I inspired a re-roll Anything that goes near it for about 2 seconds finds itself ticking away at 70-90K/s, Amarasta's is just for bosses... I've not been able to build something stronger after a good 700 hours of GD.

Here's the build. Maybe the devotions can also help your own - Yugol, Abomination AND Murmur make a great trio. The key is stacking as many on-hit and being-hit poison dots on your gear and in devotions. They stack. They. ALL. Stack. I'm sure you can bring pistols quite far that way as well. Another key element is maximizing your access to -(%)Resist debuffs.

Dervish, Level 100 (GD 1.1.2.2) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

Build Calculator that allows to customize any aspect of Grim Dawn character build including equipment, skills, masteries and devotion

www.grimtools.com

For levelling you just start off with a couple of free to pick up Slithtongues in act 1, its glorious playing any poison build right from the start that way

I'll be all over D2 res because to be fair, the above level of power I could never really attain in D2 back in the day. I didn't get the game well enough yet, and I never google my builds... always self discovery. So I've got a lot of great D2 hours ahead of me I think

For the same reason I found it more difficult to roll a new GD character and take it to the very end again..

I'm sure some people will love D2 remastered, but nostalgia is cruel and we've come such a long way with ARPGs that D2 feels really quite bad by modern standards, and I'm saying that as someone with at least a thousand hours of D2 ladder and probably even longer on LAN play/solo; I was truly in love with D2 back in the day but that day was half my lifetime ago and things have moved on. I don't think I'm alone in hoping that the D2 remaster would include some serious quality-of-life, and also - for $40 - some things that would aid replayability.

Dunno about that. Nostalgia hasn't been that cruel to me. Its all about expectations. I go into D2 knowing its going to be slower, but I've yet to find an ARPG that has a similar atmosphere to it. That is what really touched me and even playing the original now it still kinda does. Its dark. And its done really well.

 

[Sithaer]

Here's something to compare to for a poison build It can get completely mental but I'm not sure pistols can go this far. I'm sorry if I inspired a re-roll Anything that goes near it for about 2 seconds finds itself ticking away at 70-90K/s, Amarasta's is just for bosses... I've not been able to build something stronger after a good 700 hours of GD.

Here's the build. Maybe the devotions can also help your own - Yugol, Abomination AND Murmur make a great trio. The key is stacking as many on-hit and being-hit poison dots on your gear and in devotions. They stack. They. ALL. Stack. I'm sure you can bring pistols quite far that way as well. Another key element is maximizing your access to -(%)Resist debuffs.

Dervish, Level 100 (GD 1.1.2.2) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator

Build Calculator that allows to customize any aspect of Grim Dawn character build including equipment, skills, masteries and devotion

www.grimtools.com

For levelling you just start off with a couple of free to pick up Slithtongues in act 1, its glorious playing any poison build right from the start that way

View attachment 215264

That looks pretty strong from the look of it.
My Blademaster is kinda off meta since its Pierce based 'idk I felt like going with that' and now its sitting at 41k+ base att and 55k+ Beronats fury which is my main attack on right mouse.
Also has a Nemesis summoned which gains my damage bonuses and can tank quite a lot of dmg.
I'm also attack speed capped at 200% so its pretty much a rush in try to mob down everything before I die type of a build. '10-15% life leech in dual wield'

Its obviously missing the set that would make a Blademaster shine but well I can't properly farm that with this kind of 'power level' so to say so its using a mix of gear that suited my build.
Tho I only have around 200+ hours in GD so far.

I did start a second char but I just can't make up my mind and never got a second char to 100 even tho I want to.
Was interested in a gun build or something with a shield cause I really liked my 1H+Shield Templar in TQ.

 

[pantherx12]

Eastern Sun was also my fav mod at the time when I was playing with mods in single player.

Mod support is rather questionable for now and theres already a petition going on:
https://www.change.org/p/activision...ed-including-private-realm-hardcoding-support

AlphA and firesnake took over eastern sun I think.

They run servers for multiplayer for it still.

Some of the changes they've made are wierd though.

Like getting rid of lots of bone skills for necromancer and replacing them with ice. ( Ice spear instead of bone spear) it's in the interest of magic immunity less of an issue but I'd of preferred if they just do a split of magic / cold like 80/20 split so it still feels necromancery.

 

[InfaRedd]

Pre-ordered and I can't freaking wait to be back in that world again. I wish they allowed modding support though. Just don't give this the Warcraft Reforged treatment please.

 

[Cvrk]

Can we rename this into just Resurrected? Instead of Beta, cuz the game is released and I feel like we need an official thread for this.

Can anyone recommend me a companion class for my Sorceress?
I will start over as a sorcs and my friend does not know what class to chose. I guess the most obvious would be Paladin?

 

[bug]

Can we rename this into just Resurrected? Instead of Beta, cuz the game is released and I feel like we need an official thread for this.

Can anyone recommend me a companion class for my Sorceress?
I will start over as a sorcs and my friend does not know what class to chose. I guess the most obvious would be Paladin?

Iirc, paladin is boring (and needs more than one companion to really shine). I'd with a Necro/summoner for cc. Perfect for piling up enemies for sorceress' spells.

 

[las]

Got the game for free. So now I must try it out. Which class have lowest downtime and able to do the biggest pull, thinking aoe dmg? I read some posts but it seems that there's alot of different opinions.

 

[Vayra86]

That looks pretty strong from the look of it.
My Blademaster is kinda off meta since its Pierce based 'idk I felt like going with that' and now its sitting at 41k+ base att and 55k+ Beronats fury which is my main attack on right mouse.
Also has a Nemesis summoned which gains my damage bonuses and can tank quite a lot of dmg.
I'm also attack speed capped at 200% so its pretty much a rush in try to mob down everything before I die type of a build. '10-15% life leech in dual wield'

Its obviously missing the set that would make a Blademaster shine but well I can't properly farm that with this kind of 'power level' so to say so its using a mix of gear that suited my build.
Tho I only have around 200+ hours in GD so far.

I did start a second char but I just can't make up my mind and never got a second char to 100 even tho I want to.
Was interested in a gun build or something with a shield cause I really liked my 1H+Shield Templar in TQ.

You can run Poison on Oathbreaker(keeper?) too and its damn efficient. Oathbreaker/Nightblade or something works perfectly fine and you get a lot of -resist skills to defeat endgame.
All you do is trigger a wealth of poison on-hits, it goes well with being a tanky dude with a shield and lots of retaliation damage, too. The Aegis shield toss skill is awesome too, fantastic damage scaling and it feels great to use. You can take it in several directions on poison alone. Or phys/fire, a bit more straightforward but more melee oriented. I just like my GD builds as free form as possible, if I'm locked to melee, it tends to not end well late game

 

[Chrispy_]

Got the game for free. So now I must try it out. Which class have lowest downtime and able to do the biggest pull, thinking aoe dmg? I read some posts but it seems that there's alot of different opinions.

I always preferred the feral druid for that particular gamestyle.

 

[las]

I always preferred the feral druid for that particular gamestyle.

Can you stay in form all the time?

 

[Vayra86]

Got the game for free. So now I must try it out. Which class have lowest downtime and able to do the biggest pull, thinking aoe dmg? I read some posts but it seems that there's alot of different opinions.

The first (few) characters are just going to be yolo runs anyway because your stash is empty... don't expect to run D2 fast in the beginning. Shared stash makes future early games a lot more comfortable, which for melee classes is a good way not to click your thumbs off.

Sorceress, Necromancer are probably the faster AoE oriented classes, I guess? I'm running a Necro with a bunch of skeletons and magi, a golem and a hireling plus Corpse Explosion to kill the fatties. Its super laid back. You just sit there blowing up corpses once in a while and the rest is sightseeing, you've got all the time to go through your loot and then move on

Necro summoner can also run a magic find build very easily, which again will support future playthroughs nicely.

 

[Chrispy_]

Can you stay in form all the time?

You're asking me a question that I haven't had to think about for 19 years.
If the answer isn't yes, then it's as close to yes as makes no difference. IIRC the real challenge was finding enough mobs to keep the damage/leech charges up. D2 feral druids basically excel when absolutely swarmed with mobs. The more mobs, the easier it is to keep the EXTRA ANGRY charges up all the time.
Vayra's suggestion of casters do more outright damage but they're glass cannons.